


Creature Comforts

by SquirrellyThief



Category: Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
Genre: F/M, First Time, Grief does weird things to people, Hurt/Comfort, flowery language, self-indulgent garbage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 20:07:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17710721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquirrellyThief/pseuds/SquirrellyThief
Summary: The locals warned them against travelling through the wilderness at night. It was easy enough to get lost in the daylight with the sunshine to guide them.  At night, the tree cover blocked out the stars and deepened the shadows and many that went in, some that had lived on the island their whole lives, did not return. And they were in no state to travel, worn down to nearly nothing, but neither of them was willing to admit that out loud.Darc and Lilia spend a night on Cragh before seeking out the Cave of Truth and the weight of everything finally catches up with them.





	Creature Comforts

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this piece two years ago as a way to flex my "artsy romance novel writer" muscle and make something meandering and Extra. I dropped it for a long time and recently picked it back up as a challenge to write a piece with absolutely no dialogue at all. That's really the only explanation I have for this.

The people of Cragh were warm and hospitable in the same ways the people of Yewbell had been when she first arrived there. Lilia wasn't certain what she expected. An empty island perhaps. A forgotten piece of folklore, lost to time, and left to overgrow within its ocean border. It had looked as much when they flew over it. No noticeable clearing of the trees or buildings or other signs of life. Just lush greenery, wide shores, and shards of white stone the old stories told them to look out for. In a way, she was grateful it wasn't empty. Any distraction was preferable to being alone with her thoughts.

Not that she begrudged Darc his silence. She had no idea what to say to him anymore either.

The sun was hanging low in the sky when they made it to the first stretch of shoreline from the wetlands. The world steadily turning a soft, blazing orange that tied Lilia's stomach in knots. At times, when her thoughts wandered or quieted for too long and she came back to reality, she could swear they were caught in a forest fire. Quickly moving through it with their heads down to avoid the smoke. Then, she'd breathe in the soil-scented, damp air and feel a rush of relief.

They'd been uncertain of their approach when they happened upon the first people; two humans and a pair of strangely dressed creatures Darc had called Slothians when they got near enough to see. Together they were polishing one of those big slabs of stone they'd seen from the air. On the ground nearby were a set of carving tools, that were left abandoned the second Lilia and her companion were noticed. 

They were fawned over on sight. Called things like Hero and Holy Mother and inundated with questions they had no answers for and were too stunned to silence at the reception to answer anyway.

When they were escorted to the little village nestled in the inlet on the western shore, the initial shock wore off and it all started to make sense. This was part of what Nafia had wanted them to see. Proof positive that the differences of the war were not totally irreconcilable. That harmony was possible and damningly close in the grand scheme of things. Seeing so many people so happy, so cut off from the horrors of the world, made her heart ache. She could remember, vaguely, being one of them. Being small and unafraid, huddled comfortably in her mother's shadow and dozing to the ethereal strains of her ortena catching on the breeze. A time when life was pleasant and peaceful; untouched by darkness, sickness, and war.

Her greatest surprise had come from her companion, however, who was conspicuously silent about the place and its people. Though he had calmed down considerably in the hours they'd been alone, she'd expected the same blazing anger that had he had met all her arguments with. But it never came. His reservation now was different than the stoniness he'd taken on when they fled Yewbell. More subdued and inscrutable. Reverent even. Marked by a few seconds of delay as he carefully chose his words, all spoken with a tired listlessness she felt in her very bones. Like the fire in him had burned itself down to embers. Still hot, still dangerous if prodded, but noticeably dimmer.

They were all business, or tried to be, even in the face of so much hospitality. They had a mission to accomplish after all. A singular, driving focus to hone and use to carve a road ahead of them. They asked the Slothian Elders their questions in triplicate as the sluggish, sleepy creatures stretched and yawned in the fading daylight, splitting up to cover more ground about the hill. On another day, they might have grown frustrated and short with the stories and half-answers their efforts earned them. In a small way, Lilia did. Or she felt what might have been frustration on the edges of her thoughts, but there was simply no place for it to go. No kindling in her mind for it to catch and it just evaporated in her breath as she moved on to the next one.

Evening was just upon them by the time they got the information they needed. It was only then, looking out over the village from the top of the stairs leading up to the hill, that the haste of the day truly hit her. That all this, so much, had happened in a summer afternoon. That all of the madness that plagued her days had started less than a week ago. She wondered, as she watched the sky turn from orange to hazy purple, if all of her days were going to feel this long. Or if they were just going to keep getting longer and longer until she hit one that simply didn't end.

The locals warned them against travelling through the wilderness at night. It was easy enough to get lost in the daylight with the sunshine to guide them.  At night, the tree cover blocked out the stars and deepened the shadows and many that went in, some that had lived on the island their whole lives, did not return. And they were in no state to travel, strung out and harried, but neither of them was willing to admit that out loud.

At the people's urging, they lingered, going where they were ushered and taking what they were given with minimal argument. Food was was passed around, and she picked at what was put in front of her. More out of politeness than hunger. Her stomach was still a heavy stone in her core and the very idea of eating tightened her throat. Darc, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, didn't touch anything at all.

Bonfires were lit. Children were shuffled off to bed. A tired-eyed old woman splashed a sweet rum into any empty cups she could find, including theirs, without bothering to ask if they were old enough to have such things. Whether it was because they were guests or because they looked like they needed it, Lilia couldn't tell. But, the little bit extra she gave them suggested the latter. She nursed hers, feeling the worst of her tension ebb with every little sip, but never dissipating entirely.

They were told stories once the moon was out in earnest. The ones spun by the Slothians were ancient, rambling things. Lilia remembered bits and pieces of them from childhood but they seemed too outlandish to be true when heard with so many details. The humans told stories about Windalf and Nafia's visits to the island. Neither she nor Darc had asked the hear these stories, but they told them anyway. She didn't have it in her to ask them to stop. Not with lighthearted, almost worshipful way they spoke of the pair -- their New Hero and Holy Mother -- especially those that had met them personally.  It felt like a second funeral of sorts. For both of them this time. Together at last in death.

Then someone commented on how similar Darc looked to Nafia; the same eyes and features. Lilia saw him knock back his share of the rum in one wince-inducing go. There was a moment of silence. Questions quieted with pointed looks and hands resting on shoulders. They were gentler with their stories after that.

An older couple gave them a space to share. A secluded thing separate enough from the main body of the village to be quiet and undisturbed all night and possibly even some of the morning. It was a little room, spacious for one person, a little tight for two. Linen curtains blocked out the walls, held in place against the wind by wooden posts in the floor. Just like everything else on the island it was a barebones place; bedrolls, extra blankets, and fresh air and a section walled off with a thick-weave curtain. Inside that dark space was a wash basin, a pitcher of cold, fresh water, and little else.

Lilia was surprised they were allowed to stay together. A young lady and her quiet, somewhat surly male companion sharing a sleeping space would have been scandal anywhere else. A recipe for disaster even if they had both been human. She wanted to think it was out of sympathy that they kept them together. That on some level they knew they wouldn't be able to separate them without a fight. Though, that was assuming he valued her company as much as she did his. It wasn't too much of a leap; what with the way he hovered at her elbow all evening, his hackles raised. Or that's what she told herself anyway.

She took one of the blankets and ducked behind the curtain to undress for bed once she'd motivated herself to move. The extra privacy didn't have the effect she expected it to. Didn't ease her mind the way it usually did. Quite the opposite, she realized as she had to fight with the trembling in her hands to untie fastenings and bundle items together.

There was something grounding about having Darc so near. The same something about his presence that kept her focused and calm as they aided his dying mother home. That bolstered her resolve enough to stand defiantly and brought out the bitter, abrasive fight in her. Awakened a sense of conviction, of purpose, anew and kept them awake no matter how strained they became. Without it, even with so thin a wall and barely twelve feet of space between them, she felt fragile. A doll of hollow porcelain and silk left on a precariously high shelf to watch the world in judgement and collect dust until knocked from her tenuous perch.

It was a mutual, unspoken decision to push the bedrolls closer together, their supplies stacked on opposite sides. They were already close enough to imply that assumptions were being made about the nature of their relationship, those extra few inches wouldn't condemn them any further. Lilia didn't stop to think about it too much. Perhaps tomorrow when the sun was out she could see just how suspicious the decision seemed. How much intent it implied. But for now she wanted this. A little shred of contact, of closeness, of comfort and weakness and having someone to lean on. Just for a night. An hour. A few fleeting moments until she came to her senses.

And Darc indulged her. He said nothing when she sat close to him. Still in the confines of her own bedroll, but closer than she would have in other circumstances. They sat there, wrapped in thin blankets, pointedly not looking at each other. She could only barely make out the distant sounds of people still awake. The bonfire glow interrupting the silver moonlight like a false sunrise. 

When she lost her mother, it had taken days for the gravity of it to really hit her. She spent a long time in denial, trying to stay positive, and not think about the burden that had been so unceremoniously thrust into her hands. It hadn't been a surprise. If anything, she'd been bracing for it, but in that preparation she'd gone numb to it. Over-fortified until the floodgates struggled to open.

This time, it was like a pulsing, bleeding wound and the adrenaline that made her numb to it was wearing off. After finally being quiet and still, no longer surrounded by strange, expectant faces she could really feel the piece that was missing. The draining sinkhole emptiness of loss and the stubborn weight of knowing that she had caused this and so much more suffering. As she stared out into the shadows she retraced her steps, tried to think of something she could have done differently. A road that would have taken her around this nightmare, but found them all barred to her.

It started in the back of her throat. An imagined pressure holding the back f her tongue down no matter how hard she clenched her teeth. Reflexively, she pressed her palm to her mouth. Then, the burn started; in her nose and up to her eyes until she couldn't keep them open anymore. She tried to swallow it down, but it just came right back like a poison desperate to be expelled from the body as quickly and as violently as possible. It hurt all the way down her spine, blooming in her chest and disseminating everywhere else until she was tense and trembling.

She tried to take a sharp breath through her nose, but instead it was little more than a sniffle. She knew where that breath was going and held it as long as she could. Doubling over, her loose hair hiding her face, she couldn't rein it in. Not anymore. She was too tired. Spread too thin to be opaque enough to conceal it. Quietly, the first few sobs bubbled out through clenched teeth.  Each breath she thought would steady her brought another, louder sound of distress; a fresh wave of tears and hiccups and whatever other wretched thing her throat could make on an exhale. The tears stung her eyes all heat and salt and impossible to pry open anymore. She could only breathe in gasps after a while, her body protesting the way she hunched forward and covered her face giving the illusion that the mess of emotion and exhaustion was something she could manage or hide.

She started coughing after a moment. Chest-deep and gasping, killing the momentum of her fit. 

A weight set across her shoulders. Not too much, not enough to weigh her down, but enough that she knew it as there. Another one pressed against her hair, just behind her ear. Lilia bit the inside of her lip, trying to contain herself. In her silence she heard a sharp sniff from her companion. Concern threaded in the space between them, palpable. The same concern she'd seen in him whenever she touched the still-healing wound on her leg. A desperate little something hidden behind his eyes, but too wary to make itself known.

With a sniffle, she mumbled a soft apology and a thanks for his tolerance of her outburst. The weight across her shoulders vanished leaving her with nothing but air and blankets wrapped around her. Lilia let out a heartsick little laugh. The bitter taste of disappointment in her mouth but she couldn't figure out what she wanted him to do differently. She swallowed it down and let it be. When she'd collected herself enough to look up, he'd collapsed back against his bedroll.

She should try to sleep too, she knew. Another impossibly long day looming before them.

Sleeping, though, seemed like little more than a painful chore. Guilt gnawed at her for even trying. Who was she to try and find rest now? When there was still so much to do, so much present danger, so much lingering grief that remained unacknowledged and untended. To her credit, she tried, wrenching her burning, swollen eyes closed and curling up on her side under her blankets. The pounding in her head waned a little more. The knot in her stomach loosened. But the weight in her chest stubbornly kept her awake.

Outside, the lingering sounds of the village quieted to nothing, or close enough to it that the swell and crash of the ocean could drown them out. Homesickness choked her then. She'd always longed for the sound of the waves on those painfully silent nights of captivity or hidden away where no one could find her. But now that she had it, all she wanted was to slip under so deep she couldn't hear sound anymore.

Lilia opened her eyes to shadows so deep she could barely make out the bundle of her things arm's length away. Those shadows threatened to swallow her up too. Easy prey, so very small and alone. 

As quietly as she could manage, Lilia hauled herself up and rolled over, turning her back on that threatening blackness. Every muscle screamed in acrid burning protest. Ever piece of her heavier than she remembered. But she didn't care. 

There was more moonlight on this half of the room. Lilia's eyes adjusted and she could see Darc a few feet away. His back rose and fell in the steady, even rhythm of sleep. In the time she'd spent struggling with sleep he'd melted into his bedroll in a way only possible through real, soul-deep exhaustion. Quiet and still. She envied him a little.

Lilia caught herself reaching out to him just before her hand broke the boundary of his bedroll. She pulled it back to her chest quickly, scolding herself. The last thing she wanted to do was wake him. Even if that small, hysterical part of her mind demanded proof that he was still alive. Still real and not some illusion. Some dream taunting her.

She kept her hands folded against her chest and watched him.

Darc was smaller without his armor. Thinner. He wasn't all that much bigger than Lilia herself was. Taller definitely, broader in the shoulder, but waifish. The ridges of ribs and spine stuck out in places. Moonlight robbed him of his color and repainted him in uniform silvers and blacks like a ghost. Along his back and shoulders, exposed to the damp cold, was a crosshatching of little scars and missing scales. Some were so faint as to be nearly uniform, broken up by twisted, newer things. If she craned her neck, she could see the concave, jagged remains of the weeks-old near lethal stab wound she'd tended to leaving a shadow in his side.

On his shoulder blades, pale enough to soak in the moonlight and catch her attention, were the nastiest one by far. A little more than a hand's breadth apart from each other. Large, and jagged-edged, roughly circular. Lilia propped herself on her elbows, brow low, trying to get her bleary vision to focus. The centers were shiny and discolored and beneath that taut, smooth scar tissue, painful-looking knots moved of their own accord between breaths. 

The urge to touch consumed her self-control in seconds. 

Slowly, she reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers along the edge of one scar. Her touch was so light she could barely feel the warm softness of new skin.  They twitched and she noticed they moved together. He didn't stir. She didn't pull her hand away, even as the pieces started falling into place and her heart broke just that little bit more. She was sure there was nothing left of it but sand and grit now.

The rest of his skin was cool to the touch, tacky from the humidity and travel. No shallow breathing and fever heat like the last time she'd touched him. There was a distinctly inhuman sort of smoothness to him, like the snakeskin texture of his scales melted into the rest of his skin. She followed the fault lines of his back from one heart-hardening story to the next. Never straying too high or too low or too far from his spine. Never pressing down too hard.

Then she noticed Darc was holding his breath, stock-still and tense.

Only then did Lilia realize what she was doing. She snapped her hand back to her chest, burning with embarrassment. Her heart thundered accusations in her ears. How could she explain herself? What had she been thinking? When had he woken up? Had even been asleep to begin with?

Mortified, she sank back down onto her bedroll, waiting for a response. She braced herself for enraged accusations, derisive huffs, bitter insults. A retaliation of any sort that would surely be less than she deserved for this.  Whatever it was. She struggled to think up an apology. It wasn't like she'd meant harm, and he would know that. She hoped. But it wasn't like that sort of thing mattered. She could begin to imagine the outrage and tense discomfort he must feel. That she would feel if he'd done the same to her.

But nothing explosive happened. Darc released his held breath slowly; a long silent sigh through the nose that deflated him a little. But otherwise, he didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't even turn his head to face her.

Curious, and more than a little crazed from stress and sleeplessness, Lilia reached out again. Her fingertips found a smooth patch between scars high on his back. The same grazing touch as before. 

He didn't budge. He took a breath and held it only to let it go, slowly, a second later. 

She laid her palm flat against his skin, just below his shoulder blades.

He shifted and leaned into the contact. 

She stopped thinking about it. Stopped waiting for retaliation. If he wanted distance he could have taken it by now. Could have rounded on her. Made demands with words or gestures, even just a slight shifting away. At least, that was what she would tell herself in the morning when she looked back on that night with crippling shame.

Lilia inched closer. Her cheek resting against the back of her own hand, curled up against his side. She found comfort there in how solid he felt. How alive like a tree forcing itself to grow in a slate grey city. He smelled of metal, sweat, and something thick and bitter that lingered in the back of her throat. She breathed a little easier in the acceptance of her affections. If it could even be called acceptance. More a tolerance of her neediness but she wasn't going to complain. Even this little bit was enough to sweep up the sandy fragments of her heart. It wasn't enough, she knew, a weak breeze would blow the pieces hither and yon again, but it was better than what she had on her own.

After a moment, she moved her hand, pressing her ear to his back. He melted into the touch. His heartbeat was fast beneath her ear. Every deep breath sounded like a howling wind and a crashing wave. He didn't push her away, didn't growl or grow tense. In fact, those howls and crashes drew out, lasted longer, sinking deeper. Her own breathing changed to match. She thought of drakyr and dragons and mountaintops as her mind lost focus and her vision dimmed.

In the blackness behind her eyelids she saw helmeted silhouettes pacing outside a cell door. 

She could hear the static and beep of straining radios, too far to pin down but close enough to disturb her. She tasted blood and salt and felt the dull ache of a bruise where a rifle stock winded her. The fog in her head and stinging in her blood of a sedative. Shouts, smoke, and gunfire trapped in her ears.

Lilia opened her eyes and the nightmare lingered just a few seconds longer in the deep, rich shadows of post-midnight hours. A soft, questioning noise drowned out the echo in her head. As she struggled to catch her breath, she noticed a tense stiffness in her neck and numbness in her arm from the strange angle. 

She moved as slowly and as quietly as her sleep-numb limbs could manage, knowing it would be a travesty to break the peaceful quiet. She collapsed on to her own bedroll, opening and closing her hand around the pins and needles bristling along her flesh. 

Movement in her periphery startled her. The shifting of shadows as Darc lifted his head to face her. For a second time she couldn't be certain if he'd been asleep at all. Again a wave of concern hit her, preparing for sharp words that weren't coming.  But she didn't recoil, she refused to flee. She rolled on to her side to look back at him.

He was so close, enough that their arms nearly touched, his features impossible to see in the darkness. But her memory filled in the gaps. The gentle lines of him sharpened at the corners from lack of care. The rich, earthy browns and seawater greens. The circles under his eyes and the redness in them. The pale slashes on his lip and brow where skin had split open and closed only recently. His eyes didn't catch the light, but she could feel him watching her. Waiting for the next thing that would happen.

Lilia wondered, for the briefest of moments, what else she might get away with. What other affections Darc might stoically subject himself to. And she immediately scolded herself for it, but that thought and its implications lingered anyway. A teething thing gnawing at the back of her mind for comfort. A snippet of conversation where thoughtless words cut away some of the veil between them. A stolen, pregnant look that waited, patiently, for something that would likely never come.

She lifted her hand and, uncertainly, inched it toward him. She imagined his eyes following its progress as she reached for his hair. It had looked so soft when she curled up against his back. Even with a day's oil windblown dry and curling about the edges. Her fingertips brushed the edge of his ear and he tensed. Lilia fought the urge to snap her hand back. She just held her breath and waited. In hindsight, it would seem so foolish; treating him like some kind of skittish animal. But she wanted to touch him so badly. Craved that human contact like air just a few inches of water and surface tension away and her lungs were burning.

He relaxed again and she sank her fingers into his hair. It was a soft as it looked but not in the thin, silky sort of way her own hair could be on good day. No, it was closer to fur, thick and luxurious, and lingering on her skin even when she reached the ends. Any residual tension in him melted away with each new pass through the roots and unraveling tangles. Then, by increments he leaned into the touches, cocking his head into the pillow to give her access to new patches or to guide her to better places. And Lilia was more than willing to follow the tacit directions. 

She scratched at a spot near the back of his neck with torn and bitten down nails. The approving sound was so low and rumbling Lilia nearly mistook it for distant thunder; lovely and soothing in its depth like a cat's purr. A smile tugged at her mouth at the contentment the noise implied and the satisfaction that welled up in her at being the cause of it. At being able to bring something besides the misery, frustration, and grief that had so saturated her shadow. It was intoxicating and she wanted to do it again and again and again.

Lilia trailed the pad of her thumb along the sharp upper point of his ear. He took a sharp, startled little breath, but tilted his head into it. She inched a little closer and did it again, slower, using the side of her nail to trace the line, and he shivered. Just a little.

The positive responses emboldened her. Made her giddy and brave, youthful in a way she hadn't felt in weeks, months, maybe even years now. The smile hurt her face and no amount of chewing her lip could mute it. 

There was a danger in all this. Her companion's skittishness and flashbang temper could be lethal in the wrong combination. Or at the very least ruinous for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves on the receiving end. But Lilia didn't care. Not then. Not like she had before. It was hard to when they were on an even level. When her hand was buried in his hair. Every change in his breathing audible. When she was learning new ways to make those changes interesting and different. She wasn't afraid of him like this. She wasn't afraid of anything.

Lilia leveraged herself up and forward with her free arm and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to his temple.

He tensed and froze like the touch had turned him to stone. 

She froze too. Her giddy energy boiling into panic. What had she done? What was she thinking? Was she thinking? Questions stacked on top of each other in her head. A blind mess of whys and how-did-they-get-here's. None of which she hand answers for. Not really. She could speculate on the kind versions where she was wanted or the cruel ones where she took advantage, but she had no proof of either.

Well, if this was how she was going to die, then so be it. And she doubled down. She pressed another kiss, slower and lingering, to the split of his brow. She felt him unwind just a little, submitting to the new form of affection, but not quite melting into it the way he had the others. Lilia leaned back slowly, her full weight on her protesting arm as she pulled away. She didn't get far before she noticed him moving after her, lifting his head in pursuit so quickly his nose brushed hers.

It was almost a reflex the way she tilted her head and pressed her lips to his. Slightly off-center and too light, but still somehow enough to make her feel as though her head had been filled with hot water. To make the pieces of her fractured heart flutter and swarm like moths to a light. For those few seconds the world dimmed to just her heartbeat, the gentle pressure against her lips, and the soft puff of held air released against her cheek.

This was not at all what Lilia had imagined this moment to be. Not that she thought of it often, and certainly not with this particular partner. But, in her quiet hours at her mother's bedside with only books and people watching to fill the silence, she thought of it. Always in the context of some sweet, delicate romance. The grand sweeping gestures of the great love stories or the awkward, muted things of young loves temporary and forgettable. The kinds she'd seen in others. In young women her age and a little older with their soldiers in shadow corners where they thought no one could see. In little girls much younger teasing boys for disliking them for arbitrary reasons and smacking their lips against cheeks and noses and foreheads to teach them a lesson they would forget twenty minutes later. 

She pulled back slowly. Her breath catching at the way they seemed to stick together. A part of her wanted more, to throw herself at him and see if he'd catch her or just laugh when she embarrassed herself beyond saving. Another wanted to retreat to the safety of her own bedroll, her own familiar territory of loneliness, and pretend it never happened. To purge the whole thing from her mind and hope the next one was more like the one she'd conjured in her daydreams. 

Lilia got far enough away to take a breath before Darc pursued her. One arm wrapped around her waist the other pushing him up. His aim was better than hers had been, but the momentum of it knocked their teeth together and toppled both of them onto her bedroll. 

She let out a small, muffled squeak of surprise. He started to retreat immediately, scrambling back so quickly Lilia only managed to catch him by the hand still in his hair. She held on, forcing him to either stop or drag her with him. 

Heartbeats passed unused. Each hesitating and considering the other. Re-calibrating whatever thoughts might have gone into this If there had been any. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, his face shrouded in shadow, his eyes invisible to her, but she knew what she wanted well enough. Or, she thought she did in the moment. If nothing else, she would refuse to let go of the closeness she'd coaxed out of him. A shelter she'd found to hide away from the world in. Pinned down, protected, safe.

She lifted her other hand. He turned his head, sharp teeth dangerously close to the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. 

A gentle tug. He let her guide him, slowly, back down. Between his aim and her light touch, they got it right. This was more the easy, tender thing she'd imagined for herself.  By no means a perfect kiss, all tense and lacking in certainty, experimental and awkward in its mistakes. Their shared inexperience and skittishness put them on equal footing. 

He sank down onto his elbows, a portion of his weight against her, his hands finding grounding points on her skin. And she melted into every touch like ice in the spring son, content to stay there indefinitely and soak back into the earth. The world around them shrank, condensed down to juvenile simplicity and robbed of its harried pace and terrifying significance. She felt her age again. Or for the first time. A moment borrowed from a different, unburdened version of herself. A happier, softer version of both of them.

With time, they got the hang of things. Moving together instead of leading and following. A call and response, action and reaction, push and pull like the tides. It was nearly frightening how quickly they took to it. Like they'd been here before, tangled up in each other, a lifetime ago.

She felt his teeth against her lip. Sharp points grazing against sensitive, tingling skin. A gentle tongue soothing the sting of each pass until she let her mouth fall open.

Again, something that wasn't like she'd imagine. Lilia had expected it, of course. Had seen such things from a distance, but had never thought of them as appealing. She'd always thought it would be strange; having someone else's tongue in her mouth. And it was, in a way, but not in the invasive way she'd suspected. He still tasted of sweet rum and copper and under those, something beyond recognizing trapped somewhere between pleasant and unpleasant.

A small part of her still tethered to her grief was screaming at her. How dare she have this? What kind of selfish, disrespectful harlot was she to drag Darc into this with her? And yet she couldn't bring herself to pull away. Couldn't turn the remorseful thoughts to action around the warm cotton in her head.

They broke apart in a flurry of gasps, gulping down lungfuls of the same hot, humid air. 

She felt the brush of his lips against her jaw, slowly moving downward. Without thinking, she tipped her head back compliantly. The voice in the back of her thoughts got quieter, drowned out by the hammering of blood in her ears.

Sharp teeth grazed against her neck, right where her pulse fluttered beneath her skin. And from that point something more than warmth, a real genuine heat rippled through her blood. A lightning strike in a dry forest. She bit the inside of her lip hard enough to taste metal but it didn’t stop the low, whimpering noise from rattling its way out of her chest. And he was so close now there was no way he didn’t hear it.

He didn’t freeze this time. Only slowed and put his teeth away. Which was the exact opposite of what Lilia wanted in that moment. What that gnawing craving trapped somewhere between her back teeth was demanding with feverish intensity. Even when he shifted his weight to one side to free up his hands and trace the curves and planes of her side, a strange, painfully gentle, mirror of the way she’d touched his back, it wasn’t enough to quell the craving.

She nudged him on the side with her knee to get his attention. And this time he did freeze again, tense and stock still for those few seconds rational thought overtook physical urgings once more. When he calmed she nudged him again, hoping the tacit message would get through.

Darc hesitated. She could feel the tense heartbeats of uncertainty like a corona around him and for a second, it seeped into her too. This was madness. Every second of it. A reckless fever dream that had woven itself into her very blood and showed no signs of breaking any time soon. She craved and she wanted something she couldn’t name. Couldn’t place. Was just barely beyond the realm of her experience. But felt so keenly beneath her skin it might as well have always been buried there. She wondered if he felt it too.

Judging by the way he rocked back on to his knees enough to let her slip her leg beneath him, he must have.  She fisted both hands in the bunched up fabric at his hip and tried to use it to pull him closer. And he went willingly, slowly despite the insistence of her tugging, until they were flush from chest to thigh without so much as a breath of air between them.

It was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. The closest she’d ever been to anyone. The most awake and alive she’d felt in weeks. Details were lost in the overwhelming sensation of contact but she knew the particulars wouldn’t matter, not really. Only that she could touch and be touched in return. She could shiver at the way he adjusted her by degrees so they could fit together just that little bit better as if she weighed nothing at all. Every time he moved against her, even in just a little inconsequential way, she could feel it like a shock of electricity through her nerves. Too much but never lasting long enough each time. And she would chase the feeling after a while, biting back desperate little whimpers and sighs when it stayed just out of her reach. Each little sound made him braver, made every touch purposeful under its overcautious gentleness. It became a feedback loop of touch, sound, and motion until they hit a point of no return and consequences were long forgotten.

All that existed was the moment and the closeness and that hindbrain drive for more.

It hurt, but not in the ways she’d been expecting. All those old matriarchal warnings designed to scare young women into chastity seemed little more than silly hyperbole in comparison to the real thing. It was a resistance to something unknown, sure. A stitch in muscle pulled too far too quickly without proper warning, but deeper and much harder to soothe. But there was none of the sudden shock or break or tear she’d been so adamantly told to fear. Certainly not unpleasant enough to deter her now. Not by a long shot. Just a confusing mix of too much and not enough she could feel all the way up her chest and into her throat and down to the tips of her fingers where they dug into his back to keep her grounded. As if she’d rattle apart from the tension if she didn’t hold on for dear life.

There was a little awkward fumbling, missed beats and bad angles made known with a hiss or growl of disapproval. Fevered impatience and gentle caution, shameful haste and selfish need to draw it out as long as possible pulling them in totally different directions. Then, over-correction making them miss the mark again.

But their stride was a great one when they hit it. A steady rhythm with beats that made the whole body sing right down to marrow or bone and rests that brought relief to the tattered soul. An inhale to focus, an exhale to relax. Push and pull and push harder, pull faster. Over and over. Subtly different every time.

He sounded like thunder in her ear. His teeth and nails burning sharp on her skin. Never letting her get too lost in it or to too far without him. She nipped at the sharp lines of his ear and dragged her nails down his back experimentally and felt his responding shiver inside and out. Which, of course, only made her do it again and she thought, nonsensically, she heard fabric tear the second time.

For those precious few moments, she felt something better than alive or awake or human. She felt good. Genuinely good. Giddy with the feeling, drunk on it. A rush without the adrenaline crash. A gamble made without fear of losing everything. Safe and wanted. Untouchable. Indestructible. Insignificant and mundane. No cares or responsibilities. No burdens or guilt. Weightless and oh, so good, so happy -ecstatic even- to be relieved of her post as prisoner and prey and instead be a new kind of object entirely. 

She clung to the feeling and to him when it reached its breaking point; a tense sudden snap of some deep, intangible part of her. Lilia felt vibration in her throat, but had gone deaf to her own voice. To every sound around her between that breathy peak and the low, unmistakably inhuman sound Darc answered with. 

She felt a surge of pride knowing he'd followed her so closely. A feeling tagged with memories of annoyed flushing, petty words, and avoidant eyes. But after that things grew muddled, submerged and distant. She could feel the weight of her companion curled up against her side, but couldn't remember when he moved. Sleep crept up on her; a restful, dreamless thing that's only fault was that it would be far, far too short for Lilia's liking. But she couldn't care enough to be bitter. Not now.

Now there was only warmth and comfort and sleep and just that little, lingering hint of bone-deep contentment. Nothing else. The rest could come later.

 

* * *

 

This was a familiar place, though it had no name and no unique features. A place he'd been to often. A quiet, sleepy place of tall, thick trees that smelled of tilled earth and sickly sweet decay. A little hiding spot so high up he couldn't see the ground when he tried to peer between the branches. He was still small enough to sleep curled up against his father's chest; his slow, even heartbeat in one ear and the howling high wind in the other. He could feel the bracing cold of altitude and smell the water in the air if he tilted his head the right way.

But the memory lasted only a moment. Fleeting. An echo in the distance petering to silence.

Darc took a deep breath. Ice and evergreen was replaced with salt and skin,  the metallic bite of old blood. Over all that the same headiness that lingered with nauseating potency in the furs and linens of inn rooms. It wasn't as unpleasant like this, when it hadn't had time to turn fetid with age. When it was warm and intoxicating. 

He had a vague sense that the sun had risen. The gossamer fog of darkness lifted, but not totally gone like threads of spider webbing on the skin. Still early, but to early for travel maybe. Dawn or just before in a place unfamiliar.  He listened to the air. Crashing waves and a steady, even breathing not his own. Birdsongs, but no voices. With someone next to him, under his cheek and curled close. 

He leaned into the warmth. The softness of a decently made bedroll and a tangling of thin woven blankets. The body next to him moved too, coiling around him and holding him in place. He smelled gunpowder and fire smoke, but nothing unique enough for his groggy brain to put a name to a body.

Darc forced his bruised eyes open. Soft grey light confirmed his estimate of dawn and stung straight through to his skull. He winced against it and the residual throb in his temples. It felt eerily similar to his first night in Orcoth. But no, that had been ages ago now. And slowly the pieces came back to him. Droguza, the airship, that town in the shadow of the mountains.

Nafia.

He let out a long, slow breath through the tightness in his throat. 

The island, its people, their aggressive hospitality and stories that had too many threads of truth to deny.  The room they'd given the pair of them.

_Lilia_.

Darc snapped his eyes open again, powering through the sting and the fog. He pushed himself up on to his elbows and then further when the rest of the night caught up with him. He cringed at himself and sat back enough to run a hand over his face.

Oh, this was a disaster waiting to happen.  A building ready to crumble, a crippling blow cutting through the air. A human- of course. It had to be a human. That was the road his life was going down it seemed. Humans and more humans. It was almost comical. He wondered if his father had found himself on a similar morning. Questioning every life choice he'd made to put himself in that bed with that person. How he'd justified it to himself enough to father children. If he'd bothered to think about it at all. 

A soft sound from the floor caught is attention; a grumpy, sleepy little hum. Instinctively, he flinched away from the sound the scolded himself for being so jumpy.

Lilia was still asleep; one arm draped over her eyes to block out the sunlight. Her hair tousled and fanned out against the pillow. She'd only stirred, it seemed, still breathing deep and even and showing no signs of moving any time soon. 

She was a strangely lovely thing like this. Not drowning in loud colors and sanctimonious posturing. Otherworldly and ethereal. A half-step beyond human in the perfect, symmetrical lines and curves of her. Just like she had been the night before when the oranges and reds of the bonfires had washed her out in a devilish way. The dawn light leeched the colors from her until she was all bleached bone and dried blood. 

The delicate perfection of her was disrupted by a mottling of little injuries. Deep red and purple marks along her neck and collarbone, pink and white welts along her skin where he'd mishandled her. And wide yellowing bruises on her arms, below her breastbone, a poorly scarred gash on her thigh. Something bristled and puffed up in chest and stayed there as he gingerly traced his fingers from one flaw to the next. It was a familiar feeling to him now, having seen what human hands were willing to destroy, but not one he was overly fond of. 

She stirred again, shifting under his hand and he snapped his hand away. He didn't want to wake her just yet. To see her react. It was one thing to reach for someone in the dark when emotions were high and no one was really thinking anything through.  When that shape in the dark could be anyone, anything one wanted and nothing they didn't. In the light such delusions were laughable.

And while his error in judgment galled him and left a bitter taste in the back of his throat. It was nothing compared to what Lilia might feel on seeing him.

He shook off the thought and looked for something to occupy himself. His eyes flicked back to her skin. Refusing to think too much into the why of it, Darc leaned across the joined bedrolls to rummage through his pile of gear and supplies as quietly as he could manage. He groped around clay bottles of froth and bundles of herbs, metal closures and trinkets, for the fur-lined bag of spirits stones near the bottom.  Counting them out by touch, he pulled a handful of the soft, iridescent little crystals into his palm and pushed himself back up. 

The stones chimed and sang as he passed them from hand to hand. A single, sharp motion and he crushed them in his palm. The dust swirled in the air in a dim haze of turquoise light. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, the dust warm and metallic against the roof of his mouth on the inhale. Focusing on the worst points, where the welts broke skin or the bruises were darkest, but careful not to get too close, he let out the breath. A soothing, cool breeze that faded the marks like so much thick dust on a bookshelf. His healing might not be potent, but it got the job done in this case.

She stirred again, just as his breath ran out, mumbling something about the sun and stretching her arms over her head. Her eyes fluttered open, blinking against the sunlight.  When she stilled, she caught sight of him and there was a second of surprise. A widening of those winter sky eyes.

He silently prayed to whatever spirits could hear him that she'd be kind enough not to scream.

A surge of raw panic lodged itself in his throat. His mind blank for explanations, for answers to questions unasked, for rebuttals to accusations unmade. All he could think of were the disgusted, derisive looks of his mother's people, that worsened when she claimed him. He could only meet Lilia's gaze, staring back at her as every alarm went off in his head at once. Heat diffused through his blood, priming his muscles for retreat. He wasn't going to stand and fight on any of these hills. This was not his ground to die on.

But the second, those heartbeats of limbo, wound on for ages. A time spirit laughing at his misery and giving him the opportunity to fill his own head with terrified questions once more. What had so wholly broken his resolve? Which touch had set the snowball rolling downhill? When she'd reached out to him? When he'd tried to comfort her?

Regret followed close on the heels of his questions. He never should have agreed to share a space with her in the first place. Or to linger in the village at all. They had a task to accomplish, he had people to get back to. This wasn't some leisure trip. What purpose had staying really served? He never should have endured her company, her dramatic caterwauling. The weight of her against his back, the kisses, caresses, and soft, breathy words. He'd only set himself up for this and every disappointment to follow. 

No matter how many walls he put up, he could still see her. And if he could see her, she could hurt him. It was only a matter of time.

Then, her expression softened. She smiled up at him, a small, sheepish little thing. Darc felt something in his chest move. Just shift wholly a few scant inches forward and down, closer to her. The same something that had twisted so tight he could barely breathe when he watched the Dilzweld airship take off with her on it. Like a spinning dive, too fast to correct, impact inevitable, but never connecting.

He let out his held breath through his nose. His clenched jaw loosened.

Her smile widened and he could feel one spreading across his own face. In those few seconds he could swear he could feel those swirling lights supposedly in his soul. The movement and brightness of them, nebulous and strange.

Gentle fingers danced up his arm to his shoulder. Lilia's smile faded, her brow furrowing, as she skirted around the dark line Geedo's collar had left on his throat. He flinched away when they pressed to the raised cluster of scars at the clasp point as if her fingers were the collar's fangs, sinking in and twisting tight. She jerked her hand back the mask of concern worsening until he couldn't look at her anymore.

Darc closed his eyes and sat back on his haunches to let her up. He heard the rustle of fabric. A soft sound of surprise and mumbled words of gratitude that made his ears burn. She was so close he could feel the air change when she moved to sit up, and inched closer. A gentle, warm pressure bloomed across his brow; her forehead pressed to his, their noses nearly touching. She timed her breaths to match his, sharing the air. One hand ghosted along his forearm, tracing the diamond pattern of his scales, up and up to his shoulder.  

Instinct demanded he scramble away. He put as much distance between them as he could, but his body refused to comply. Rooted in place by that traitorous thing that had taken up residence in his chest.  He felt so foolish. So lost and clueless. Out of control and adrift. What kind of strange hold did she have over him that such a simple little touch could make him so docile, so tame, so subdued. 

_Dangerous_ Volk had called her. And he was right.

She could see right through him, straight to the core of his soul and know him at a glance. Knew how to break through his guards and cut him to the quick. To stand to him and not be harmed. Never be harmed if he had any say to it. 

And she was _human._

That was the worst of it. This human girl. This soft, delicate thing, weakness personified, and yet she had so many hooks and burrs to catch on and be dragged into her orbit. Her softness and mercy. Charity and gentleness. Dangerous indeed. It was all to easy to believe any words in that lyrical voice of hers. To yield to the blue of her eyes. To find no threat in the slump of her shoulders, the bloom of red as her teeth worried her lip. How easy would it be for her to reel him in with affection. To manipulate and disarm him, and then sweep out the rug from under him. 

Such was the way of humans, wasn't it?

But he struggled to doubt her sincerity. What could she gain here, in this far-removed place of peace. The one place in the world the war hadn't touched. Now, when she didn't seem the least bit afraid of him anymore, if she'd ever truly been to begin with. When the previous night was still so vivid in the back of his mind. How determined she was to reach for him despite his hesitation. How her hands and wandered over skin and scale alike. How she'd panted and moaned for him. He could still feel the echoes of her pulse against his lips, close enough to rend with his teeth if he'd wanted to. Her nails digging fresh welts into his back. Thunder in his ears and smell of her everywhere, blinding him to the rest of the world like the first sliver of sunlight through a cracked door.

What could she gain from subjecting herself to this, from giving all this to him when she already had all he could afford to give in return?

Darc cracked his eyes open just a little. Enough to soak in the light, to see the difference between the fairness of her skin and the grey-white of the blanket she used to fend off the morning air. She was so close, so pensive and serene, her eyes closed and breathing even. All it would take was a tilt of his head. A shift of his weight and he could touch her again, taste her again, lay her down and take her again if he truly wanted to.

She would be his undoing just as Nafia had been his father's.

And yet, he stayed still.

She murmured something about the hour. So quiet he almost didn’t hear her. It broke the magic of the moment as gently as such things could be broken. She was right, and he knew it. They had to dress and prepare to leave, lest they be shooed out by the locals. 

Darc shifted away and let her up. He watched her bundle up in blankets and pick up the pile of her things. She spared him a glance over her shoulder, then disappeared behind the curtain just as she had the night before.

Darc let his weight pull him back down to the pillows and body-warm bedroll. A deep breath of linen and skin and astringent human captivity. The sounds of fabric rustling, heavy ceramic scraping wood and a glug of water into a basin. The distant wind and crash of waves. There was a dull throbbing behind his eyes now. A tension in his shoulders. The ghost of gentle fingers in his hair, along his back as he hovered between bleary wakefulness and turbulent sleep.

On loose, tired limbs he forced himself back up before he sink far enough into sleep that dreams might reach him. He twisted and stretched feeling some protesting burn to the movement. How hard had he slept? He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so heavy and so solid and not wound tight enough to snap. It was a likeable enough feeling, but not one Darc could see himself getting used to.

He dressed slowly, thoughts wandering again. How strange that a place like this existed. That there was quiet to be had in the world. A quiet different from the oppressive, imprisoning silence he’d come to know. A space that didn’t need filling, hours that didn’t need to be spent on a task. A place to just exist, to just breathe and enjoy the absence of noise. 

He heard the swish of the curtain against the floor behind him, but couldn’t be bothered to turn.  Footsteps approached, soft and timid. Too loud for sneaking, too cautious for confidence. A soft breath almost swallowed up by the wind. A whispered apology as nails scraped against irritated skin along his back; down the same tracks they’d torn in the small hours. Those gentler touches kept going, moved closer, until slender arms had wrapped around him, her hands resting against his chest. Teasing observations, pointing out the pieces of the night that still lingered on his skin, were whispered into his hair. A warm body pressed against his back.

Darc slowly lowered his hands to rest against hers. The second they touched, Lilia took his hands -both of them- and laced her fingers with his. He leaned into her and she nuzzled his hair. The affection tightened something in his throat enough to remind him of the collar for a harrowing few seconds. It locked his jaw tight and burned beneath the skin like fragile, childish fear of the inevitable. It was worse like this, he thought, in the light where he couldn’t lie to himself about what she saw. Where her affection could feel so much like pity, but he couldn’t let it go. 

They stood like that for some time. Breathing in slow unison, leaning against each other.

Then, the distant crunch of sand under feet. The din of voices. Growing louder. Laughter and yawning. Loud enough to pick out words. Darc’s heart rattled him from the inside and without thinking he took a quick step forward, breaking Lilia’s grip on him. Then another to put distance between them. 

When he turned to her, her brows had knit together in a mixture of hurt and concern, but he couldn’t find his voice to smooth it away with explanations. Her head turned sharply after a moment, her face pinked, and she brought her hands to her chest.

The humans that had given them the room to stay at seemed surprised they were awake despite their thwarted haste the night before. They asked more than their fair share of innocuous, polite questions that Lilia answered so quickly it almost seemed rehearsed. But if they noticed they didn't care. They'd only come to extend their invitations to breakfast. Invitations that were insistent when they both tried to politely reject them. Eventually, Lilia and the other humans found a compromise in taking some provisions for the hike into the hills and caverns. It wasn't ideal, but Darc had learned young not to complain at the prospect of free food.

When the humans were gone, Darc couldn't help himself. A small laugh bubbled out of his chest. At the absurdity of finally being too welcome in a place. Of  aggressive kindness. Lilia, to her credit, tried to put on a tough front. She puffed up like a small, angry little beast and demanded to know what was so funny and it only made him laugh harder. Her fists clenched at her sides, her mouth pulled into a thin line and her cheeks flushed. She gave him a weak little shove when he passed to close to her to collect his sword and the last of his gear. And when he didn't even budge, she started laughing too.

They left in a hurry after that. Darc only taking the time to comb wet fingers through his hair instead of anything close to proper washing. He prayed a day's hike would hide anything particularly damning from Volk's keen nose. They were all stoicism and polite gratitude by the time they joined the villages at the ashes of the bonfires and more food than they could possibly need was shoved in their direction. 

For the first leg they walked in silence, making their way through forest and rations alike. Lilia often nudging his arm with her elbow to get his attention and make him take more. He wasn’t watching too closely, but he was sure she was tacitly trying to give him the lion’s share of the humans’ gifts no matter how much he claimed he didn’t want them. Or refused to admit that after so much stress without eating he needed every bite she gave him.

The silence grew oppressive when the food ran out. Far from the gentle quiet of the morning and well into the tense awkward of things terrifying and unaddressed and no distractions in sight. They were still too far from the caverns to warrant listening with any sort of intensity. On a normal day, Darc didn’t mind the sounds of the wilderness. If anything he preferred them to voices, reminded of the relatively peaceful treks to the church ruins when his days were his own in the spring and summer. But there were so many loose threads hanging in the air they drowned out all of his senses. His attention fully focused on trying to tie them together. Or at least knot them on themselves and get them out of his way.

She must have felt a similar way, he figured, because she started asking him questions. Simple ones, innocuous on the surface but personal enough to give him pause. Where his scars had come from. What he'd meant by things he'd said. Details to refine the broad strokes of his life he'd already given her. 

Darc considered telling her off. That his life before now was none of her business. She could just suffer through the unanswered curiosity forever for all he cared. But as he met her gaze, the fire of his outraged burned down. She looked so nervous, her hands folded at her chest, making herself smaller; another apology prepared behind her eyes. 

For a moment, he wondered what the harm would be in telling her. It wasn't like anyone was around to eavesdrop.  If she spread anything he told her it would be her word against his, and anyone whose opinion mattered to him wouldn't trust a word she said. Without his word she could only speculate, fill in the blanks with details possible only from her side of the border. She watched him expectantly as he grappled with himself, nails digging into the crescent of his birthmark. 

He took a deep breath and he told her. All of it. Starting from the bruise she’d asked about and moving outward. Building on contexts and adding details to explain the hows and the whys. He laid out the cycle of his days of enslavement under Geedo. How different they were from the myriad, intensive lessons of his father before her. The long winters spent locked inside, the summers out in the painfully hot north-Aldrow sun until his vision would darken. The arbitrary time limits and intentionally impossible tasks. The insults and the switch.

It was surreal saying it all out loud. Giving voice to the years of hardship. He’d never had to before; those that didn’t know didn’t need to and the ones that knew had been there for many of them. There was no point in recounting them. He always thought it would feel like complaining. Like he was taking a gift for granted. Talking down the charity that had ensured his survival, petty with hindsight. But no. No matter how broad he made the strokes, saying it all out loud simply made it real. That enduring silence gave the years a dream-like quality, despite the scars it left, but words and confessions carved it into the air forever. Gave every event a weight and a gravity he hadn’t known they deserved until they settled in the pit of his chest like so many stones.

And she listened, controlled and attentive. Whenever he glanced at her, she would nod at him to continue. Still listening, still interested. She filled his silences with her own stories when they dragged on; his heart too heavy to move on to the next piece. What she remembered of her village and the raid; hazy and vague with time. Her father’s disappearance. Her mother’s sickness, painfully relevant in its details. Darkham and Dilzweld giving chases including the imprisonment he’d rescued her from the day before. So many details overlapped in unexpected ways that it almost felt like a sick joke. 

The only exception was when he got to the end. The setup and the betrayal. His wings. These things she listened to in silence. She endured his long pauses with stoic, reverent patience; her eyes forward and face impassive. The same emotionless mask she’d worn after Nafia as they moved through the moments before the decision to leave came upon them. Darc tried to match her. To keep his tone even and calm, detached from the memories. Describing them as if they had happened to someone else. Someone distant and nameless and insignificant, long dead and followed by no one.

Halfway through, she sidestepped closer to him. Not enough to force a collision but noticeably closer. She got the drop on him, using his distraction to her advantage, and before he knew it she’d taken his left hand in both of hers. She held on firmly enough that he couldn’t take it back without knocking her from her feet. Her fingers laced with his, careless of the way the sharp, jagged edges of his claws scratched up the back of her hand leaving pink and white lines wherever they touched.

Without a word she pulled her hand to his chest, his scarred and battered knuckles mere inches from her heart. It was a bit awkward to walk that way, but Darc didn’t have it in him to mind. She loosened her grip to one hand eventually, but refused to let him go. Not that he really wanted to, if he was being honest with himself.

They walked quietly after that. More of that comfortable, contented quiet of the village. Birdsongs and rustling leaves in the distance. The different voices of the wind. There was a time once when he’d been able to pick them out with Windalf’s help. But now they all just sounded the same and it made his heart ache.

Lilia squeezed his hand and suddenly pulled him a few steps backward, claiming she’d heard something. Confused, Darc let her drag him toward the supposed sound until he heard it himself. Bright, ethereal strains of sound caught on the wind like clouds or seeds. He couldn’t name them, not voices, not chimes, but also both of those things. Like Lilia’s ortena given a voice that spoke no words. It became no clearer as they followed it, only louder, until they were at the mouth of a cave.

Nafia’s cave of truth. 

They stopped together at the entrance looking down into the darkness. Their hands still laced together. This was it. The point of their quest, their reason for being here. Nafia’s final request of them. The strains in the air wafted around them, smoke with no color, heat, or scent. 

Darc set his jaw, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, acutely aware of the occupation of his hand. A part of him wanted to snatch it away, wrap his arm around himself, and trace the pattern of his birthmark with his claws. Comfort in the usual way. But a much larger part didn’t want to untangle his hand from the one squeezing it so tightly. So he stood there, knots in his chest. Waiting and waiting for the blow of finality to land. 

Lilia let go of his hand. When he looked she’d brought both of hers to her chest. Her head bowed and eyes closed  in a silent little prayer. Darc realized this might be the last time he truly saw her this close. This trip, this quest, this island. Once they left this place, it was back to their respective sides of the borders.

Back to their friends.

_ Back to the war. _

She opened her eyes, he turned his gaze away before she could meet it, and led the way in.

 


End file.
